In modern times, Bragigas was revived by the Kyoryugers. The new generation of Brave warriors used the Guardian Zyudenchi’s Secret Stones, which are the fossilized tears of Bragigas, to bring back the giant from its endless slumber at the bottom of lake Madou. The fossilized tears are the ones that Bragigas shed for his fallen Zyudenryu comrades in the previous war against Deboss; these tears captured the spiritual forms of the Guardian Zyudenchi. Bragigas is the final Great Zyudenryu to join the Kyoryuger team and thus is the final mecha to be released in the DX line.

First of all, this toy comes in a MASSIVE box.

The box for Bragigas is actually a few inches longer and taller than the box for the Kyoryujin.

So you can imagine that this box is going to be filled with a ton of plastic goodness.

And it is!

The name of Bragigas derived from the words Brachiosaurus and Gigas, which is Latin word for giant; making this an aptly named Zyudenryu. From head to tail, the toy is about 22 inches long, which makes for an impressive toy.

Besides being big, Bragigas also breaks away from the rather flat features that dominate much of the DX Kyoryuger mecha line. It’s got a lot of points, peaks and curves. Furthermore, the mostly grey and black figure is nicely accented by the gold trim. We will talk about what makes the gold trim so special a little bit later, when it is easier to point out its significance.

At the back of the rear legs, there are two parts that serve no purpose in the Bragigas or Bragi-Oh forms of this toy. They are what Transformers fans would call kibble.

Like the other Zydenryu, Bragigas comes with its very own Zyudenchi( Beast Battery). The battery has a panel inside of it that can be displayed in either dormant or ready-to-use ( Brave-In) mode.

In its dormant form, the battery also has a glow-in-the-dark feature.

Like with the other big mechas in the line, Bragigas has its own electronics. So you can stick the battery into the toy's neck hole and close the mouth to hear DR. Ulshade say:

“Gaburincho! Bragigas!”

However, unlike with the other big mecha’s in the line, there is no need to stick anything the dinosaur’s mouth to get the Gaburincho sounds. This is because upon lowering the jaw of Bragigas all the way down, a tab at the base of the neck will press a button on the body of Bragigas. Once you move the jaw up, the tab will stop pressing the button and you get the Gaburincho sounds from the toy. So the battery plays no role in this part of the electronics.

That is not to say that the batteries cannot interact with the mecha.

The back of Bragigas serves as a storage container for the batteries of the Guardian Zydenryu. There are13 slots for the 13 Guardian Zydenryu.

One of the slots is outlined in red, because it has a button at the bottom. When a battery is inserted, the toy will make some laser sound effects.

Having inserted the battery into this slot will change the sounds that the toy will produce when the red button at the rear of the toy is pressed. When there is no battery inserted, pressing the red button will cause the toy to make roaring sounds and holding the button will cause Dr. Ulshade to go, “ Giga, gagan!” On the other hand, with the battery inserted and the button is pressed, Dr. Ulshade will call out the name of one of the Guardian Zyudenchi and its powered up “ Giga” attack form. These sounds cycle in order, so you will have to cycle through them if you are looking for a particular sound.

It sucks that the interaction point for the batteries is a simple button because they could have put in a battery reader like Gabutyra’s. This would have increased the interactivity between the toy and the batteries of the line.

As for the red button’s other sounds, the ones that play when the red button is held, inserting the battery into the back will not affect these sounds at all.

Before we move onto the toys next for, I just wanted to point out that I am not a big fan of how the back of the mecha is open. I don’t like how it makes the toy look hollow, especially when none of the batteries are inserted. Now that I got that off my chest, let’s continue.

Cho Kamitsuki Henkei Gigant Bragi-Oh

The transformation to the Bragi-oh is very simple. First you have to remove the head/neck and tail of the toy. You then close the toy up lengthwise, with the rear portion folding forwards.

This is where the Giga Gaburincho (Chomp Chomp) comes into play. The toy can chomp on all of the batteries stored in the body, thanks to the fact that the body of Bragigas also doubles as a big mouth.

When you perform a Giga Gaburincho, the electronics in the toy will produce the voice of the original Dr. Ulshade saying “Giga Gaburincho!” You have to make sure there is a battery in the slot with the button to get accurately perform a "Giga Gaburincho!" If there is no battery in this spot, Dr. Ulshade will instead say, in a low voice,' Karapekorincho." At least that is what it sounds like to me. My limited Japanese skills have deduced that it translates to something like" Empty chomp."

Anyhow, back to the transformation. Next you move the legs of Bragigas forward. The rear legs become the arms of the Bragigas by simple folding back the feet of Bragigas.

Next you remove the top part of Bragigas’ head from the neck. Underneath is a face plate that folds out. You pop the top of Bragiga’s head onto of the top of the body so it can become the head of the robot. Then you attach the tail of the toy to neck and you have the axe weapon for the might Bragi-Oh!

Once you have completed forming the Bragi-Oh, you can press the red button the body of the toy and it will chant:“Giganto, Giganto…Giganto, Giganto”. This is followed by Kyoryu Violet saying, “Gigantoo Bragi-oh!” Then there is some more sweet chanting.

The DX toy version of the Bragi-oh is a chunkier, stouter version of this mecha than its TV counterpart.Now that we have the Bragigas in robot mode, it is easier to point out and discuss the gold trim. Remember how the fossilized tears of Bragigas, which contained the spirits of the Guardian Zyudenryu, brought Bragigas back to life? Well, the Guardian Zyudenryu make their appearance in the design of Bragigas.

The gold trim is actually the faces of the 13 Guardian Zyudenchi.

Pretty cool, huh?

The Bragi-oh has bicep swivels and a click-y elbow joints, with VERY limited range of motion.

So while you may be able to rotate the lower arms around and barely move them at the elbom, the articulation for the Bragi-oh is limited to moving the arms up and down. The feet do not move at all.

Cho Kamitsuki Gattai Gigant Kyoryujin

Forming the Gigant Kyoryujin is also a fairly simple process that finally uses the kibble that is on the rear legs of the Bragi-Oh.

There are a few steps to prep the Kyoryujin for the combination. You need to attach the support clip onto the back of the waist. This is support clip comes with Bragigas and is the same support clip that came with Plezuon. You also need to remove the helmet from the Kyoryujin and hide it in the tail. Then one of the grey panels (the kibble) is attached to tail of Gabutyra by sliding a bar on the inside of the panel into the recess of the tail. The other panel plugs into this one, with the connection point facing foraward.

Now let’s put these giants together!

The front legs of the Bragigas, which serve as the legs of the Bragi-oh, attach to the bottom of Gabutyra’s feet. This is very similar to how the rockets of Plezu-on attach to the feet of Gabutyra.

On the back of the Bragi-Oh is a panel, with the faces of the Zydenyu, which becomes the chest plate for this new combination. Underneath the panel is a second head, which is the head for this combination. The body of Bragigas then becomes a backpack for the Kyoryujin.

Then the neck piece is combined with Zakutor to form the Bragio Zakutor Axe. The Gigant Kyoryujin hold this weapon with the second handle that is stored on the back of the neck piece.

Finally, for the crowning piece, litearally, you attach the tail of Gabutyra to head. This was done to use up all of the pieces of Gabutyra in the combination and looks pretty dumb in my opion. However, in the show the tail does serve as a functional part of the combination, as the tail is a weapon.

If anbody cares, I added Dricera and Stegotchi at the very end, because the shoulder clips on my Gabutyra are pretty weak. They cannot support the massive arms very well. Now that we are done forming this, I can hold the red button on the toy to get it to chant:“Giganto Kyoryujin, Giganto Kyoryujin” Followed by Kyoryu Violet saying the name of the mecha once more. Then there is some more chanting of the word “Gigant.”

In this formation, the Gigant Kyoryjin makes a good display piece, but don't expect much more out of it than that. Due to the massive size of the Bragio Zakutor Axe, you cannot have the toy wield it properly. You will have to be content with the toy holding it in a resting position. You can rotate the other arm up, to have Dricera pointing forward. But that is about the limit of play value to this formation.

The DX Gigant Kyoryujin is a good respresentation of its TV counterpart, if you take into account the fact that this is one big combiner. In terms of screen accuracy of the toy, however, several parts are too big: Stetotchi, Dricera, Zakutor, Parasagun and the tail that sits atop the mecha’s head. This is due to the fact that in the show, these parts of the mecha magically shrink down to be in proportion with the rest of the mecha. So for this year’s final combination, PLEX showed some restraint and decided to NOT make one big amalgam of all the mecha in the line. Instead, the Bragigas is the mecha that unifies the Zyudenryu for the 5 main Kyoryuger. So at least this combination is not the 10 Zyudenryu montrosity that could have resulted from adding Plezuon, Pteragordon, Ankydon and Bunpachy.

Gigant Formation

Like in the show, Bragigas and the Kyoryujin combine into the Gigant Formation. In this form, much of the Bragigas becomes a giant cannon, on a tripod, that opens up to shoot.

When the cannon is opened, you hear Dr. Ulshade say,” Kiiter Odoroke! Giganto Atsumarincho de Gaburincho!”This translates to , “ You’ll be surpriese when you hear! Gigant Atsumarichno and Gaburincho!” In the show the opening of the cannon would be followed by a giant blast of Brave energy from the batteries within the cannon. Now in the show, all of the other Zydenryu would show up and support the Kyoryujin and Bragigas for this attack. Since I have limited shelf space, I did not put them in the shot. So just use your IMAGINATION and pretend they are there.

All in all, I love this release. While not adding a battery reader is a missed opportunity for this toy, it can still stand tall and proud as one of the best toys in the line. While I was down on the DX Kyoryuger line's reuse of the two body types for the arm mecha, the last three releases in the line, including Bragigas, have really turned my opinion about this line around. It is by no means the best line in Super Sentai history, but it is a fairly good line.

So with Bragigas we bid farewell to this line. Now we must wait another 10 years for another Super Sentai dino line.

Comments

You know how in Star Trek everybody would be staring at some strange unexplainable space thing and Spock would say, "Fascinating captain"...

So I picture the design process as being a small senior design team cutting up cheap plastic animals and then ramming them together while a dozen assistants with glue guns orbit around the designers applying liberal amounts of glue and blowing hard to hurry up the drying process.

I am with you. This design really grew on me when I actually got a chance to handle it and spend some quality time with it.

I can't really compare the Gigant Kyoryujin to the Samurai Ha-Oh because I have never handled the Ha-Oh. I only own the Shinken-oh, the Daikai-Oh and the Kajiki Origami. I could compare the Gigant Kyoryujin to the GigaZord, which used to own, but that would be like comparing apples to oranges.

That being said, I like the Gigant Kyoryujin better than the Samurai Ha-Oh because the design is much simpler. I like that they didn't try to cram all 10 Zyudenryu into the design of the final mecha. It is less of a clusterf&$ck of a robot.